- If you could profile one of the characters in Tunnel 29, who would you choose and why? What would you ask about that wasn’t covered in the series?
I would absolutely interview the cameramen. Specifically the one who follows Ellen. What must it have been like to just watch her go? Did he expect her to make it back?
I feel like mostly everyone in the story lives in Germany and having an outside perspective would be fascinating. Did the cameramen, as Americans, fully understand the magnitude of what was going on? What was at risk for them? What kind of relationships did they make with the tunnelers or Berliners?
The cameramen are the closest thing we as the listeners have to an audience surrogate–asking them about their experience seems almost necessary to really make the experience fully real.
- Most StoryCorps episodes are Audio Profiles. If you liked the story you listened to, what elements made it compelling? What might you emulate in your own profile? If you didn’t like the episode, what were some of the flaws? What might you avoid in your own profile?
I listened to the episode captioned: “I did think I was the smartest person in class. But I realized that you were gonna give me a run for my money.” It was about a white female student and a black male student growing up in the same school just after integration took place in that school.
It was so short!!!! Frustratingly so. They chose such an interesting relationship and story but we only got to hear the smallest piece. AND THEY SPENT 30 SECONDS ON MUSIC. I will not take up precious airtime with music when a piece is so short. Also, there wasn’t a lot of background noise or music going on so I feel like the piece didn’t have as big of an impact as it could have given the right music or sounds.
The quick recap of U.S. history explaining the context of their story at the beginning was very helpful. I like the idea of laying down a foundation before getting into the audio profile.
Audio Experiments 